


Chasing Refuge

by wickedlupin



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood and Injury, Earthquakes, Family, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Natural Disasters, POV Alternating, Single Dad Ludger, Thriller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:21:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28439787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedlupin/pseuds/wickedlupin
Summary: No one wants to be on the top floor when an earthquake hits. Luckily for Ludger, he happens to be on the ground—but the people he loves are higher, and he won't leave without them.
Relationships: Elle Mel Marta & Ludger Will Kresnik, Fractured Milla & Elle Mel Marta, Jude Mathis & Elle Mel Marta, Jude Mathis/Ludger Will Kresnik, Leia Rolando & Ludger Will Kresnik, Leia Rolando & Nova, Ludger Will Kresnik & Nova, hints at leia/nova in the bg
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Chasing Refuge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [secretagentfan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretagentfan/gifts).



> Witten for tales secret santa 2020!! HAPPY HOLIDAYS JOANNA!!! this one really got away from me. I wanted to write some sort of disaster fic for you, because I know that's your jam, and when we watched _The Quake_ together I got really inspired. This was not supposed to get nearly this long. Oops. I had a lot of fun writing this though, I hope you enjoy it!! <3
> 
> Huge thanks to rainwa for proofreading this for me!!!!

The elevator dinged softly with each passing floor as it descended to the lobby. The hotel was tall and vast; the elevator ride to the lobby took several minutes alone, traveling all the way from their room on the twenty-ninth floor. But that was what Elle had requested, and it was _her_ birthday, so Ludger couldn’t complain.

The elevator ride was the longest trip they’d had to take, after all. The hotel was right in their hometown, but Elle had always admired its height, had always wanted to see the view from the top. Ludger was just lucky enough to have friends who worked there as stewardesses, who could get him a hefty friends and family discount for their little almost-vacation.

Actually, Elle had wanted a room on the _top_ floor, and she had made her disappointment very clear when the front desk had informed them that the top three floors were only meeting rooms and ballrooms. The highest floors with rooms on them were booked solid, too—but Leia and Nova had done their best to move guests around, until there was exactly one room available on the highest floor.

It was a single room, though, with only one queen bed—not exactly ideal for all three of them to share. But Elle had been _elated_ when she tore open the curtains and took in the full view of the city, so, again, Ludger couldn’t complain. She graciously offered to let Jude and Ludger share the bed— _thanks, Elle_ —and began carefully crafting a blanket fort around the chair by the floor-to-ceiling window.

Jude had crouched down to help her with some of the logistics, securely hooking the corners of the blankets over the chair and the desk, while Ludger was tasked with returning to the lobby to request more building materials.

“Ludger!” Nova’s voice echoed across the lobby as soon as the elevator doors opened.

Leia looked up from her place beside her, a matching grin on her face. “Back so soon! Is Elle happy with the room?”

Ludger crossed to the front desk, smiling at both of them. “Yeah, she loves it, thanks to you. She’s making a fort now, so she sent me down to ask for more blankets.”

Nova laughed boisterously. “So authoritative! She must get that from her mom, she’s nothing like you in that area, Luds!”

“Hey…”

She reached across the counter to pat Ludger roughly on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you a whole stack of blankets! Do you need some towels, too? Any pillows? Don’t worry, I’ll get you some anyway!”

She dashed into the storage area behind the desk before Ludger could answer, leaving him sputtering while Leia laughed at him.

“It’s nice that Jude came along with you too, isn’t it?” Leia prompted, giving him a knowing look. “I’m surprised he got the days off. And only one bed, hm? You gonna make a move?”

“Oh, yeah,” Ludger answered her dryly, trying to hide the blush that inevitably spread over his cheeks. “Making a move with my eight-year-old in the room, _that’s_ ideal.”

“You never know!” Nova chimed in, returning with her arms full of linens. “Your moves in the past have never been all that successful, maybe your problem is that you plan too much!”

“Thanks, Nova,” Ludger deadpanned, shoulders slumping.

She laughed and dumped the pile of blankets in his arms. “Hey, it’s just the truth! Jude’s good for you, why not go for it?”

Ludger shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. But not tonight—this trip’s about Elle.”

  


* * *

  
The hotel room had practically transformed. The comforter had been stripped from the bed and draped delicately across the other half of the room. Jude and Elle were enclosed in a sort of tent, with the only opening facing the window to look out at the vast view of the city. Elle was arranging the other pillows and blankets on the floor in a nest, barking instructions to Jude.

“Where’s Ludger?! He’s taking too long, we need more blankets!”

“We’re awfully high up, Elle,” Jude reminded her, “You just sent him on a long journey.”

“I guess so,” Elle answered, crossing her arms. She pressed her nose up against the glass window, appreciating the view for the umpteenth time. “Let’s go out on the balcony while we wait!”

Jude chuckled and ducked out of the tiny tent opening, careful not to disrupt the blankets that had been crafted into their ceiling. He unlocked the balcony door, and Elle rushed out.

As soon as she was on the other side of the glass, though, something changed. She froze, eyes widening, and fell back before she reached the railing. Close behind her, Jude placed a steady hand on her back to help catch her.

“Whoa there, you alright?”

Elle’s legs shook, and she slowly lowered herself to the concrete of the balcony. The wind picked up slightly, and she ducked down lower. Jude crouched down beside her, rubbing her back.

“It’s scarier out here than inside, isn’t it?”

“No, I’m not scared!” Elle insisted.

“Of course you aren’t,” Jude assured her. “But with the wind, it almost feels like it’ll blow you off the edge, doesn’t it?”

Elle nodded a little, her eyes locked on the cityscape far below them.

“I promise it’s safe, though. Do you want to go to the edge? I’ll go with you.”

“I’ll catch you if you fall, so don’t be scared, Jude,” Elle told him, and he huffed a small laugh.

“Sure. I feel safer with you, Elle, thank you.”

Together, slowly, they crept across the balcony on their knees to the metal railing. Elle grabbed one of the bars tightly in her fist, and held onto Jude’s sleeve with the other.

“We’re so high up,” Jude breathed, taking in the view himself.

“Well, _duh,”_ Elle told him. “We’re on the twenty-ninth floor, Jude, of course we’re high!”

“Right.” Jude laughed and rubbed the back of his head. “Of course. You’re so smart, Elle.”

She preened at the praise, but her face was still a little pale.

“…I think I’ve had enough,” she said after a moment, “I can see everything from inside, anyway.”

“Alright, we can go back in—” Jude cut himself off as a faint rumbling sounded distantly. His eyes searched for the source of the sound, his instinctive curiosity taking over briefly. On the horizon, flocks upon flocks of birds took flight, until the sky was almost black. The balcony shook, and Elle cried out, grabbing onto Jude’s arm more tightly.

Jude watched the cityscape, curiosity quickly turning to horror. “What is it, an earthquake—?”

His fears were confirmed as the ground in the distance rolled, taking roads and buildings with it, making them sway horrifically. The sound was deafening, filled with the shattering of windows and creaking of metal atop the rumble that came closer and closer with the wave of earth.

They were in the worst possible place.

He grabbed Elle’s wrist before she could protest, booking it back inside the hotel room and throwing the balcony door closed. He stripped the thick comforter from their fort.

“What’s going on?!” Elle shouted, panic clear in her voice.

“Come with me, Elle!” Jude yelled back, rushing across the room, as far from the window as possible. Elle followed him, and the rumbling increased. The lights flickered and went out, and Elle shouted in terror again.

Jude grabbed her hand and threw them both onto the ground in the furthest corner, pulling the comforter over them. “Duck down, Elle, and hold onto me!”

She did as she was told, and Jude put his arm over her, shielding both their heads as the floor tilted and shook violently beneath them. There was crashing behind them as lamps, the TV, and anything else on the desk fell to the floor and shattered. The frame of the building creaked dangerously as it shifted, and a loud crack and shattering told Jude that the floor-to-ceiling window had broken.

Elle shook and curled up tighter. Jude dug his heels into the carpet to root them in place as the room first tilted them backward, then forward again. They were safe from sliding, kept in place by the wall, but the sound of furniture moving against the carpet made Jude throw the comforter off of them to look.

The room was a wreck. Broken glass completely covered the floor and surrounding furniture, and more pieces rolled off of the comforter as he threw it back. All the furniture in the room was slowly sliding in their direction. Jude held his breath, scanning for the next safest place—

The building lurched and tilted further, until everything slid at a more rapid rate. The dresser was coming right for them, and there was no time to move. Jude threw his arm out instinctively, shielding Elle with his body, and felt his wrist snap as he caught the heavy oak.

He screamed, but kept his arm out as his entire body shook with exertion.

_“Jude!”_ Elle screamed, removing herself from under him to push her little hands against the wood. The glass on the floor dug into her bare feet just as it sliced open Jude’s knees. He tried to support the dresser with his other hand, crying out pathetically again, but giving them enough room to roll out of the way before the solid oak slammed into the wall where they had been previously.

The ceiling above them was caving in, crumbling and bringing with it the contents of the room on the floor above them. The floor beneath them swayed again, but remained intact, as the rumbling, rolling earth slowly stilled once more.

Everything around them continued to crumble, coating them both in thick dust. Jude held his broken wrist, but couldn’t afford to give it the attention it screamed for. His eyes were glued to the ceiling, where a couch teetered on the edge of the hole that had formed there.

  


* * *

  
The lights above the thick metal doors blinked slowly as the elevator crept down to him once more. Ludger’s eyes barely peeked over the pile of linens Nova had provided him with, and he sighed impatiently. Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, fifteen…

Above him, something made a quiet tinkling sound. Hoping to distract himself, Ludger gazed upward to find the source of the noise.

It was the lobby’s grand chandelier. It was vibrating faintly, the crystals clinking together gently. Ludger wondered if someone upstairs was playing music, or if the A/C might have just turned on and bothered the fixture.

His eyes returned to the elevator. Eleven, ten, nine…

The clinking intensified, and a rumble spread beneath Ludger’s feet, as well. He glanced down at the floor, around the pile in his arms, when the realization hit him.

More than the realization, the _earthquake_ hit him, full force.

The rumble rapidly grew into something dangerous, and the floor shook, making it difficult to stand. There was a heavy thunk above his head, and Ludger’s heart dropped. _The chandelier._

_“Ludger!”_ Nova’s voice shouted from across the vast, open lobby. “Get over here, quick! Take shelter!”

Ludger dropped the haphazardly stacked linens and practically dove across the room. He vaulted himself over the desk and rolled beneath the heavy, solid oak where his friends were taking cover.

“Are you okay?” Leia asked him in a hurried panic, ducking close to Nova. Ludger ducked with them, covering his head with his arms.

“Too soon to say!” he answered, barely hearing his own words above the terrifying _crunching-cracking_ of the building, and the earth’s constant rumbling and rolling. There was a distinct _crack,_ a dull _thud,_ and then seconds later, a deafening, shattering _crash_ as the chandelier collided with the floor. The noise echoed for far longer than Ludger imagined it could, and he held his breath, listening to the bits of glass that pelted the front of the desk they crouched behind.

  


* * *

  
Elle was still clinging to Jude, tear tracks on her face. Shakily, Jude brought his good hand to rest on her hair, letting the other lay gingerly in his lap. As the dust in the air continued to settle, Jude’s mind whirred, putting together a plan. There would be aftershocks—they both needed to get to the ground floor as quickly as possible.

Their bags had been stacked by the window. Searching through the debris, Jude could see that they were now on the balcony, flush against the railing. The room was tilted in their direction, but the balcony was tilted away. A large crack ran along the cement, and the metal of the railing creaked in protest the more it pulled away. Whatever they packed in those bags didn’t matter now—but what they needed were _shoes._

Jude finally tore his eyes away from the disaster of a room and looked down at the girl beside him. She was covered in dust, her pigtails matted and dirty. Her hands and feet were bleeding, cut by the glass when they had scrambled out of the path of the dresser.

“Are you okay, Elle?” he finally asked, his hand leaving her hair to pick up one of her hands, examining the cuts.

“What do we do?” Elle asked quietly instead of answering, her usual brave front cracking.

“We’re going to go down to the ground floor, where it’s safe,” he told her. “And— meet Ludger.”

_Ludger._ He should have been safer, down in the lobby. He could have gotten out of the building altogether—as long as he didn't get stuck on the elevator.

“Ludger’s downstairs?” Elle asked, and Jude shoved down all his worries. He had to trust that Ludger was alright, or Elle would see right through him.

He nodded, gathering as much strength as he could. “He’s downstairs. We just have to get down there and meet him.”

“Okay,” Elle answered him in a tiny voice. Jude pulled a few of the bigger glass shards out of his knees, then started to get to his feet.

“You stay right there, Elle. I’m just going to gather some things we need.”

She nodded quickly, releasing her grip on Jude’s arm to leave a bloody hand print in its place. She brought her knees to her chest and hugged them tightly.

Now on his feet, the room before him was even more daunting. Every step seemed like a gamble. He slowly crossed the room to where they had initially left their things, trying and failing to avoid the glass with his bare feet. He scanned the floor for their shoes while giving the teetering couch above him as wide a berth as possible. He found just one of Elle’s little blue shoes trapped against some of the remaining glass in the window frame. Taking a guess at what this meant, Jude looked out onto the balcony where their bags had fallen. Her other shoe was resting on its side against Ludger’s suitcase.

Jude took the deepest breath of his life. It was clearly dangerous to climb out onto the balcony, but they simply couldn’t descend twenty-nine floors of rubble and debris barefoot. He scrunched his finger against his temple, searching for a safer way to retrieve their things—

He wouldn't be able to crawl around until he splinted his wrist, he supposed. Amending the steps his initial plan, Jude made his way back to the door where Elle sat, and opened up the closet.

“What are you doing?” Elle asked him.

“I need to make a splint,” Jude explained, taking out the wooden hangers and dumping them onto the floor beside Elle. He picked up one of them, weighing it in his hand for a moment, then held it by the top portion and slammed the thinner, wooden bar against the corner of the wall, cracking it.

“Ha!”

He stuck the hanger under his armpit to brace it, and used his uninjured hand to pull the now-splintered bar of wood free from the rest. He held it against his wrist, considering, then nodded. Good enough.

“How’re you gonna hold it there?” Elle asked, watching him curiously. Jude glanced around the room, considering, then wordlessly walked to the remains of their blanket fort, pulling the bed sheet from the bottom of the pile. He brought it back to Elle, and sat beside her.

“Elle, can you rip this sheet? I need a long strip.”

Understanding his plan, Elle nodded confidently. “Yeah, I’m really strong,” she assured him.

“Yeah you are,” Jude encouraged her. “Once you get it started, too, it should tear really easily.”

Elle nodded again and gripped the edge of the sheet with all her might, pulling and trying to get it to rip. She struggled for a moment, and then a tiny tear started.

“There, perfect, just like that,” Jude encouraged, and she furrowed her brow in concentration, trying to pull harder with her cut hands, leaving bloodstains on the white sheet. Finally, she managed to tear a strip down, and she let out a short breath.

“Great job, Elle, thank you.”

She grinned at him and handed over the strip of fabric. “I’m pretty good at that, huh?”

“Very good,” Jude praised her.

She puffed her chest out a little, proud. Jude smiled and started wrapping the strip of fabric around his wrist and the splint he fashioned. Using his teeth, he tied a knot, then tested his wrist movement with a satisfied nod. “That’ll do. How are your feet, Elle? Do you still have glass in them?”

Elle deflated slightly, sitting back carefully to lift her feet so Jude could see them. “I don’t think so, but they _hurt.”_

“I bet they do.” Jude propped her feet up on his knees, gingerly running his fingers over the soles, feeling for any remaining shards. He found one and pulled it out, and felt her wince. “Sorry, Elle, you’re doing great.”

“Easy for you to say. I bet you won’t look so cool when you have to pull those out of your knees, huh?”

Jude laughed a little. “Yeah, I bet you’re right. It doesn’t feel too good.”

He heard a ripping sound, and Elle handed him another strip of fabric. “Can you put this on it?”

Jude nodded and took it. “Good thinking. It’ll be tough to walk, but we’ll have to keep going, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I can handle it,” Elle said dismissively. Jude managed a small chuckle, and wrapped her feet in the fabric, tying it securely to stop the bleeding from the little cuts.

He saw to his own feet and knees after hers were taken care of, then picked up the remaining hangers, lining them up top to bottom so they were all hanging off of each other. He strung one last strip of fabric between all of them, tying each one securely together.

“What’re you doing now, Jude?” Elle asked curiously.

“One of your shoes fell out onto the balcony. I’m trying to build something long enough to get it back.”

“What about _your_ shoes?”

“I haven’t found them yet.” He hoped they were still in the room, and hadn’t fallen through the balcony’s railing to the ground. “I’ll keep looking, once I get yours.”

Elle nodded a bit, and Jude pulled lightly on either end of his hanger chain, testing its strength.

“Okay,” Jude said to himself, getting up again and making his way back to the window, stepping lightly around the glass that littered the carpet. He crouched down near the balcony, gingerly placing his bad hand on the window frame to help his balance.

He eased his hanger chain down the slanted concrete toward the little blue shoe. When the hook of the first hanger was near enough, he swung it slightly, aiming to hook onto the shoe’s strap.

He missed a few times, then dangerously nudged the shoe closer to the edge of the suitcase, where it could easily fall to the ground. Jude froze, then took another deep breath.

Very, very slowly, he eased himself forward a bit more, and angled the hook more toward the balcony. He lowered it into the shoe, then pulled it toward himself—

The shoe came with it, dragging up the tilted concrete as Jude hoisted the hanger chain back up. Once the shoe was in hand, he let out a heavy sigh of relief.

“You got it?!” Elle hollered from behind him, and Jude held the little shoe above his head triumphantly.

“I got it,” he confirmed, tossing the shoe across the room to her so he could use his good hand to pick himself up carefully.

  


* * *

  
Ludger lifted himself to his feet, staring through the thick, settling dust at the wreckage of the chandelier. It had crashed right through the floor into the basement, leaving the floor around it cracking and unstable.

He let out a long, heavy breath before panic settled in his gut.

Leia rose to her feet beside him, brushing off her uniform. She offered a hand to Nova and pulled her up as well. Both their stockings had snagged and ripped at the knees, and overall they looked as disheveled as Ludger felt.

“We… need to evacuate the building,” Leia said, in a sort of daze, looking out over the destroyed lobby.

“Elle and Jude are upstairs,” Ludger answered her simply.

Leia and Nova looked at each other silently, and Ludger slammed his fist down on the desk that had protected them.

“They’re all the way up—!” He cut himself off, choking on his words. If there was this much destruction on the ground floor, what would the twenty-ninth floor look like? Would it even still be there?

“I’m sorry, Ludger,” Nova said, her eyebrows pulled together. “We put you all up so high, I… had no idea something like this would happen…”

Ludger closed his eyes. “Of course you didn’t,” he said, fighting to keep his voice calm. “It’s…” _Not your fault._ His pounding heart cut him off this time, refusing to let him get those words out, hanging on to the attempt to place that blame on someone, _anyone._

“They’re safe,” Leia cut in, desperate determination sparkling in her eyes. “They have to be! Jude’s smart, and he’s really strong! I’m sure he kept them both safe somehow.”

Ludger only nodded once, trying to believe her.

“If we get out, the fire department will be here soon,” Nova tried to reassure him, “They’ll get everyone from the top floors out!”

“They’ll be busy getting everyone else out,” Ludger said. “And not just from this building— the whole city must look like this. What if they’re too late?”

Nova and Leia looked at each other again, but Ludger continued before either of them could protest further.

“I’m going up to find them. I’ll make sure they’re safe and bring them down myself.”

He wasn’t sure whether he expected them to protest, or to accept his reckless decision, but he was set on it regardless. Neither of them said anything right away, but then Leia nodded firmly.

“I’ll go with you.”

“What—?”

“And me too!” Nova insisted.

“There’s no point in all of us putting ourselves in danger,” Ludger argued, but Leia crossed her arms.

“Would you listen to yourself?” she asked sharply, “If that were true, couldn’t you just count on Jude bringing Elle down to safety himself? We’ll all look out for each other.”

“We’re in this together, Luds!” Nova promised, with a rough punch to his shoulder.

Ludger felt emotion bubble up in his chest, and he closed his eyes again, willing back the tears that choked him. He nodded again, then opened his eyes to look at both of them, a wobbly, uncertain smile on his face.

“…Thank you.”

  


* * *

  
Jude finally found his shoes wedged beneath one of the nightstands. After dumping a good amount of glass out of them, he managed to slip his sore, bloody feet into them. It sucked. It sucked a _lot._ And Elle was in the same boat—she really was a strong kid.

Jude should have been prepared for the chaos on the other side of the door. Unfortunately, he wasn’t.

Several of the other doors along their hallway were open. People were emerging, most of them hurt, screaming and crying. Some were making their way down the hall toward the stairs, while others were too wounded, unable to do so. In the room across from them, visible beyond the opened door, a woman was crouched over a man, bleeding from the head, dreadfully still beneath a pile of rubble.

Jude felt Elle grab on tighter to his hand, and Jude’s heart constricted. He forced himself to look away from the crying woman.

His job was to get Elle to safety. He was only one person—he couldn’t possibly stop to help everyone. _It’s your job to help whoever you can,_ his father’s voice echoed in his ears. _If you leave them behind, you’re worthless._

_I’ll be worthless if the whole building comes down before I get out of here,_ Jude tried to counter, squeezing Elle’s hand in return. He swallowed the panic building in his chest.

“Don’t look, Elle. Let’s go.”

“They’re all… really hurt,” Elle said in almost a whisper, her voice shaking. “They’re more hurt than we are, so we should help them, right?”

Jude took a deep breath, and shook his head. “We can’t help them all. I need to get you to the ground, Elle. We need to meet Ludger, that’s most important.”

Elle stopped walking and dug her heels in, grabbing Jude shirt and pulling hard. _“No!”_

Jude stumbled and gaped at her, but her expression was set and angry, tears welling in her eyes.

“It’s my fault we’re in trouble, right? Because I wanted the top floor, now we’re stuck up here, _right?_ And now it’s my fault we can’t help anyone?!”

“What? No, Elle—” Jude crouched down, so he was eye level with her. This only seemed to fuel her anger.

“I’m not a kid!”

Jude grabbed both her hands, ignoring the protest of his splinted wrist. “Elle, none of us knew this was going to happen. This wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault. But—” He hesitated. He didn’t want to force an eight-year-old to face this reality—he didn’t want to face it himself. “The building isn’t safe. There will be aftershocks—more smaller earthquakes. We need to get out of here as fast as possible. If we get hurt, we can’t help anyone, can we?”

Elle’s eyes were wide, and she just shook her head.

The ground shook again, and Elle launched herself forward into Jude’s chest. “It’s coming back!” she shouted, terrified. The other people in the hallway screamed as well, falling to the floor. Jude curled himself around Elle, protecting her head again, as light fixtures and more chunks of the ceiling broke away and fell around them.

“Get down, cover your heads!” Jude futilely shouted to the people around him. His voice was only drowned out in the chaos. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the aftershock to pass.

As the rumbling died down again, Jude opened his eyes. More bodies. More injury.

One of the walls further down the hall had crumbled. From beneath the rubble, Jude could make out the face of a man with silver hair streaked with red—though from hair dye or blood, he wasn’t sure. The man was gasping and squirming; one of the light fixtures that had been attached to the wall was trapping his throat.

A dark-haired man was on his knees beside him, eyes wide, his teeth bared in a wide grimace.

Jude forgot everything about his priorities. He got to his feet and rushed to the scene, kneeling down beside the man and looking over him, searching for the safest way to free him.

In the back of his mind, Jude knew this was a hopeless case, a waste of time. Even if he could free the man, it was unlikely he would make it to the ground after an injury like this. But he’d been right there, he’d witnessed it. He couldn’t in good faith turn his back on someone who was suffering in their last moments.

The light was a lantern that hung on a hook—the hook had come down right around the man’s neck, with the base trapped under heavy chunks of drywall, holding it in place. Jude ignored his splinted wrist and lifted the drywall, tossing it aside, until there was more room for the man to breathe. He choked and sputtered, and blood bubbled up in the corners of his mouth.

The man kneeling next to Jude had closed his eyes, head lowered, the same grimace etched onto his features. “You can’t save him,” he said darkly.

Jude’s heart twisted. “I’m sorry,” he said weakly. “I wish I could do more.”

The man just shook his head, and Jude’s attention was pulled away as the silver-haired man coughed and retched more desperately. Jude placed a hand on his face, in some effort to offer comfort, if nothing else.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, but there was no relief in the eyes of the wounded; only cold anger and hatred. Jude couldn’t look away from those eyes, until the man finally stilled, with that look of loathing etched on his features forever.

Jude tore his eyes away from the body and looked back over his shoulder to find Elle, gripping her filthy shirt in her balled fists and looking on in fear.

The dark-haired man rose to his feet, turning his back on the corpse. Jude blinked up at him, his heart twisting again.

“I’m so sorry,” he offered, yet again. “Was he a friend? Family?”

“My uncle,” the man said gruffly. “Can’t say I’m sad to see him go, to be honest.”

That only made Jude feel worse.

“If you keep stopping to help people, you’ll wind up like that, too.” The man jabbed a thumb in the direction of the corpse behind him. “You can’t count on anyone else stopping to show you pity, so you’d better look out for yourself first.”

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat, then strode away down the hall. Jude had nothing to say in response. He was left to close the uncle’s eyes with shaky fingers, and to move on himself. It was cruel, for the man to turn his back on his family so easily—but part of his words rang true.

It wasn’t just his own neck Jude needed to get to safety, though—it was Elle’s, too. And Ludger’s, he thought, uncertainty gripping him.

They were still on the twenty-ninth floor.

  


* * *

  
The doorway to the staircase was blocked by the intricate, broken gold arms of the chandelier. The only way around meant trusting the cracked, crumbling floor to hold them. By the time they found Elle and Jude, and made it back down, would there even be a floor left for them to cross?

Ludger tiptoed across the furthest edge, along the wall. Leia and Nova were still standing across the lobby, on the stable section of flooring; better to cross one at a time to avoid concentrating their weight in one place.

Ludger watched the edge of the floor, where it still crumbled a bit with every movement he made. He paused when a particularly large chunk broke off, and the chandelier sunk another inch into the basement. He held his breath until everything stilled again, then continued to slide along the wall. The door was close. Three more steps—

He precariously leaned over and grabbed the handle, pulling it open. If he stepped into the safety of the staircase, he wouldn’t be able to hold it open for Leia and Nova. With a deep breath, he looked across the room to his friends.

“Nova, you next,” he called across to them, securing the door with his heel.

Nova gave an exaggerated nod, setting her determination, then began sliding across the floor in the same way Ludger had.

She was smaller than Ludger, but her footsteps were heavier. Ludger could feel his blood pressure pick up, holding his breath as he watched in agony.

“Be careful, Nova,” he called to her helplessly.

“Oh, calm down, Luds. Don’t be such a backseat driver.”

Ludger met Leia’s eyes across the room; she seemed to be holding her breath, too.

Nova’s foot came down a little harder, and the chandelier creaked, tearing off more of the floor. Ludger felt the entire floor rumble. Could Nova’s footsteps be so powerful?

The rumbling increased, and to his horror, the chandelier didn’t stop sinking. The floor was crumbling rapidly, with the cracks extending right to where Nova was still standing.

“Nova, move!” Ludger shouted, standing his ground to keep the door open, securing her escape to safety.

But Nova had frozen, nails scraping at the wall in terror as the carpet caved in right under her foot.

Ludger was about to dive toward her, to grab her wrist, but Leia beat him to it. Her light, practiced footsteps danced over the falling chunks of flooring and concrete. It almost looked like a scene from a movie, playing out in slow motion, as Leia scooped Nova into her arms like it was nothing.

Both of them tumbled past Ludger into the staircase and he finally released the door, leaping in after them. They were a panting tangle of limbs, scrambling together to shield themselves from the falling dust and debris as the intense crashing of the chandelier drowned out everything else once again.

  


* * *

  
Jude wrenched the crowbar in between the elevator doors, going for leverage and doing his best to be mindful of his wrist.

The staircase had been a mess when they reached it, littered with debris—and on occasion, bodies—and packed full of panicked people attempting their own descent.

It was a dangerous place to be. Panic could be as threatening as the earthquake itself, especially in such close quarters.

With every body they'd passed, Jude’s thoughts had returned to Ludger—on the ground floor, buried in rubble; or trapped in an elevator, just waiting for the cord to break and send him down a dozen or more floors.

Three flights down, Jude had grabbed Elle’s arm and pushed out of the stairwell onto the twenty-sixth floor. There had been a few injured people just outside the stairwell doors, crouched against the wall. Jude had glanced over them but kept moving, and he hated himself for it.

He managed to break down the locked door to the maintenance closet with a few swift kicks, found what he needed, and continued down the hall to the row of elevator doors.

Elle watched him push and pull on the crowbar with all his force, from where she sat against the adjacent wall, giving her bloody feet a brief rest.

“Aren’t the elevators broken?” she asked, “Don’t we have to take the stairs?”

Jude fell against the crowbar for a moment, panting. “We have to take the stairs, yes—but I wanted to see where the elevators stopped.”

“How come?”

Jude didn’t answer right away, pushing all his weight against the crowbar again. The doors budged a half inch, and Jude grunted, trying to keep his momentum going, but his strength gave out again.

“…If Ludger got on an elevator, I want to know which floor he might be on,” he finally offered.

He heard Elle’s sharp intake of breath behind him. With both hands still on the crowbar, he glanced back at her.

“…What if he got hurt like that guy’s uncle?” she asked meekly.

Jude closed his eyes. It was all too easy to picture. Instead of the red streaks in silver hair, he could imagine Ludger’s dyed bangs, dropping down into his eyes filled with fear and desperation.

He shook his head roughly. “Ludger’s okay. We have to believe he’s okay, Elle. We’ll find him and get to safety.”

She didn’t seem all that convinced, but she was clearly trying. She closed her hands around her dirtied pink jacket, pulling it closer around herself, and nodded determinedly.

“…I believe he’s okay,” she said aloud, seemingly in an attempt to convince herself.

“He’s okay,” Jude repeated, and shoved himself onto the crowbar one more time. Sweat rolled down his face, his dark hair sticking to his forehead. He yelled out in his effort, and the doors budged open another inch.

Good enough. He could get a good look into the elevator shaft, at least.

He dropped the crowbar with a clatter, and rested his forearms on either side of the opening, bracing himself there and pushing his face as close as he could to try to see in the dark.

There were three elevator shafts, all in a row. Jude looked to each side, searching for the cars among the metal framework.

As his eyes adjusted, he could make out three cords—he followed each of them down. To his horror, one of them was broken, the steel rope hanging ripped and splintered at the ends. The car must have fallen all the way to the ground—

Jude tried not to imagine what any passengers inside must look like now. Tried not to remind himself that Ludger could have been on board.

The second elevator’s cord seemed to be intact, but the car was so far below, he couldn’t make out which floor it was on. For all he knew, it was all the way on the ground floor, as well.

The third was only a few floors below them—trying to count floors by the framework, Jude guessed it was between the twenty-third and twenty-fourth floors.

If he yelled, would anyone hear him inside the car?

“Hey!” he shouted, his hoarse voice echoing around the chamber. “HEY! Is anyone down there?!”

He paused, holding his breath and listening closely. A moment later, a loud banging emitted from the car nearest to them.

Someone was trapped inside, alive.

_Ludger._

Jude picked up the crowbar again, hooking the curved end around one of the doors and pulling with all his strength. His injured wrist shook and screamed in pain, but there were more important things—

“Jude?!”

Elle had gotten to her feet again, and came to his side, her tiny hand gripping his pant leg.

“What’re you doing? Is it Ludger?!”

“Someone’s stuck a few floors down,” Jude answered her, panting heavily. He didn’t have enough leverage to make the doors open any further. He kicked at one of them in frustration, his shaking legs bringing him down to his knees.

Elle shoved her own face against the crack, trying to see for herself.

“How can we get them out?” she wondered.

“There should be a door at the top—if someone can get it open, we can help them crawl up through the doors—but I can’t even get those open…” His voice came out strained and urgent, his heart beating too fast in his chest, his breaths coming in gasps.

Elle pulled her face away from the doors to look at him. “How come there’s light down there?”

Jude blinked. “Light…?!”

He looked through the doors again, and wondered how he’d missed it before. It wasn’t much, but a faint amount of sunlight shone just below the elevator car.

“The doors down there are open,” Jude realized, the cogs in his brain turning once more, forming a new plan, from a new angle. “That’s great news. Come on, Elle, let’s keep moving!”

Elle nodded courageously, squaring her shoulders. “Let’s get Ludger!”

  


* * *

  
Traveling up was a struggle as the masses made their way down, pushing past the trio with no regard. Ludger led the way through the panicked crowd while Nova and Leia linked their fingers, holding onto each other to avoid being separated.

As they continued their ascent, however, the crowds dispersed. Ludger could only think that was a bad sign. Not a living soul was left between the eighth and ninth floors—and very quickly, they discovered why.

The ninth floor’s staircase had crumbled and caved in, blocking their way up—and everyone else’s way down.

Ludger slammed his fist against the piles of broken cement and drywall, venting his frustration.

“There has to be some other way, right?” Leia spoke up hopefully, and Nova nodded emphatically.

“Yeah! There must be a hole in the floor or something, somewhere we can climb up.”

Ludger looked at them in astonishment. “You think that’d be safe?”

“Well, no,” Leia admitted, crossing her arms. “But is any of this really safe?”

Ludger opened and closed his mouth a few times, then nodded. “Yeah, alright. Let’s look around on the last floor.”

He was glad Leia and Nova had accompanied him, after all. It would have been very easy to lose hope without them, but every time they encountered an obstacle, they both had energetic fighting words to offer.

“What’s the first thing you’ll say to Elle when we find her?” Nova asked him now, clearly in an attempt to distract him, and raise his morale.

“I… have no idea,” Ludger answered honestly. “Maybe that I’m glad she’s safe? That I’m proud of her for being so strong?”

It was bittersweet to imagine a tearful reunion, and the gratitude he would feel to see her in one piece. The uncertainty he felt surrounding that idea hurt, but he could picture it clearly enough that it gave him hope at the same time.

“And what about Jude?” Leia prodded, “What’s the first thing you’ll say to him?”

Ludger opened his mouth, but no words came out. There were a thousand things he’s always wanted to tell Jude, but had always held back—waiting for the right time. Now time was ticking away. Would he ever get the chance to say any of it?

Ludger stepped over a light fixture that had fallen onto the stairs, taking his time in formulating an answer.

“I’ll tell him everything, I guess.”

_“Everything?!”_ Leia shouted in astonishment, and Ludger felt his face heat up.

“I don’t want to lose my chance!” he shot back, avoiding looking at either of his friends. “I just want him to know. I really need him to know.”

He didn’t need to look at them to feel the grins plastered on both their faces.

“Good luck, Luds, you got this,” Nova cheered him on, and her quick, friendly blow to his shoulder almost knocked him down a few steps.

“…Sure,” he answered back shortly, his heart turning over a variety of emotions.

  


* * *

  
Four more floors down. Four more flights of lifting Elle over piles of rubble, of listening to her complaints and protests that she could _do it herself._

Jude’s heart was still racing, but he reminded himself to tread carefully, his eyes constantly scanning their surroundings for weakened foundation. As they made their way down the hall of the twenty-second floor, Jude held his breath until he saw with his own eyes the miraculously opened elevator doors.

Upon closer inspection, it would certainly be a tight squeeze; the doors still weren’t open all the way, but it gave them significantly more room than Jude had been able to provide upstairs.

A loud, rhythmic banging was coming from the elevator car above. Jude secured his hands on either side of the opening and leaned forward, sticking his head into the shaft to search for the best footholds. He didn’t want to climb in, it was dangerous and reckless and _stupid,_ but if Ludger needed out—

A loud, metallic _crash_ echoed above him, making Jude jump back quickly, removing his head from the opening. A loud cross between a groan and a sigh followed, and Jude sucked in another breath.

“Hello?!” he called into the shaft.

“Hey!” a voice answered; a woman’s. _Not Ludger._ There was a scuffling sound, and Jude assumed she was climbing out of the duct she managed to bust open. “Who’s down there? Can you help me get the hell down from here?”

For the first time in his life, Jude choked on the automatic _‘yes, I’ll help.’_ He hesitated, then shouted back up at her: “Is anyone else in the elevator?”

“No, just me,” the woman’s voice called back.

Jude felt small hands pull at his shirt forcefully, and looked down to meet Elle’s angry, determined gaze.

“We’re gonna help her, right?!”

Jude took a deep breath, then nodded.

“…Of course. We’ll help.”

Jude poked his head through the doors again. “Can you safely climb down the framework?”

“I don’t know about _safely,”_ the woman answered skeptically, “But I don’t think I have much of a choice.”

“Are you hurt?”

“A little bruised from being tossed around, but nothing I can’t handle.”

She certainly had an attitude, but in such a grim situation, Jude actually appreciated it.

“If you can make it down a little closer, I can help you through the doors,” Jude promised, and he heard a short, irritated laugh from above.

“I’m sure I could manage that much myself. Big help you are.”

Beside him, Elle was grinning. “I like her,” she piped up.

Jude smiled a little with her.

“Sorry,” he offered to the woman, “There’s not much else I can do without climbing up there, and I don’t think that would do much good, anyway.”

“Yeah, easy for you to say. You better catch me if I fall!”

Jude heard a grunt, and watched two long, bare legs swing over the side of the elevator car. One boot braced itself on one of the metal bars of the framework, and the woman bravely lifted herself off of the car to support her weight entirely on the bar instead. Her body was framed in a long mane of golden hair, and Jude wondered why she didn’t try to tie it up—wouldn’t it get in her way?

Elle peeked out the doors beneath Jude, and gasped at the sight. “Wow, lady, you’re really cool!”

The woman laughed, but there was an edge of fear in it, the effort of the climb and the dangerous height clearly affecting her, after all.

“Just a little further,” Jude urged, reaching out his good hand to more accurately judge the distance between them.

The woman made it down below the elevator car, when the floor rumbled threateningly again. Instinctively, Jude grabbed Elle and pulled her back away from the open shaft, removing his arm from it as well. The rumbling increased, and he heard the woman inside the shaft scream.

Despite everything his instincts shouted at him about the danger, Jude thrust the top half of his torso through the opening once more.

“Hold on tight!” he shouted to her, “Stay put until the aftershock passes!”

But as Jude watched in horror, her boot slipped from the metal bar beneath it, and she screamed again as she clung on with everything she had, the very earth attempting to shake her into the depths below.

“Hang on!” Jude shouted again. He looked up at the elevator car, threatening to break free from its cord, then stepped through the opening anyway, straddling the framework with his legs to give himself a more secure hold. He didn’t have to go far before he could reach the woman. He reached out with his good hand and grabbed her wrist, where her fingers clung desperately to the metal.

“Take my wrist, I’ll pull you up!” Jude shouted above the loud rumbling.

The woman’s wide, pink eyes stared back up at him in terror, and her fist didn’t release its hold on the framework.

_“Trust me!”_

Finally, she let go and grabbed Jude’s wrist instead in a vice grip. With her other hand still clinging to the metal bar, she helped Jude pull her up until she regained her footing.

“Straddle the bar and wait for the shock to die down!” Jude shouted again, without releasing her hand. She followed his instructions, and slowly, holding onto each other, they waited out the worst of it.

When the rumbling died down again, Jude noticed that the woman’s chest was heaving. He was sure he appeared much the same, shaken and exhausted.

“We’re almost there,” he breathed tiredly. “I have to let go of your hand to climb up—just stay close behind me, and I’ll pull you up once I’m on the floor.”

The woman nodded quickly, but hesitated in releasing her grip on Jude. When she finally pulled her hand away, Jude turned from her to carefully climb back up to the open doors.

“You could’ve gotten really hurt, you know. Why are you helping me?” the woman asked behind him. Jude smiled, just faintly.

“I’m just too much of a do-gooder, I guess.”

Jude lifted himself onto the floor, then offered his hand once more, his injured arm braced against the firm metal to hold himself in place. The woman grabbed his wrist in the same manner, and hoisted herself up, until she was pulled to safety with their combined efforts.

Jude fell backward onto the dirty, dusty hotel carpet and took a long moment to breathe. Elle’s face peered over his, eyes wide. Jude smiled at her faintly; he had been reckless, and lost sight of his priorities. He was immensely glad she hadn’t been hurt while he had been occupied.

“Sorry,” he told her, “Did I frighten you?”

Elle shook her head sharply. “You’re pretty cool yourself, Jude.”

Jude laughed breathlessly, pushing himself up into a seated position. “Thanks, Elle.”

He looked over at the woman. She was pushing her hair out of her face while she caught her breath. When she caught Jude watching her, she blushed brightly.

“What are you looking at?!”

Jude blinked in surprise. “I— s-sorry. I’m glad you’re okay.”

Her expression softened slightly, and she nodded. “Yeah. All thanks to you. I appreciate it.”

“You’re so pretty!” Elle piped up, admiring her golden hair. “What’s your name, lady?”

“It’s Milla,” she answered, offering Elle a wider smile. “What’s yours?”

“I’m Elle!” the girl said, puffing out her chest. “And this is Jude. He’s pretty cool.”

“I owe you both my life,” Milla told them, and Elle grabbed her hand.

“We’re going down to find my daddy,” she explained, more brightly than Jude had seen her since the main shock. “You should come with us!”

“Is there anyone you need to meet up with, Milla?” Jude asked, and the woman’s face scrunched slightly.

“…My sister. I was going down to meet her at the bar on the fifth floor.”

“I’m sure you’re worried about her,” Jude sympathized, but Milla only shrugged.

“Not really. I have no doubt she managed to evade injury.”

Elle’s eyes shone in adoration. “You really are the coolest.”

Jude rubbed the back of his head. “…Still. We can all head down that way together. I’m sure we’ll all feel better once we meet up with our loved ones again.”

“I have no qualms with traveling with you,” Milla answered, getting to her feet and brushing dust off of her short skirt. “Like I said, I owe you.”

“You don’t… owe us anything,” Jude assured her.

“Don’t turn that down, Jude!” Elle shouted indignantly, “You never know when you’ll need to cash in a favor!”

Jude laughed nervously, getting to his feet with them.

“…Okay, sure. Well. We appreciate it, Milla.”

  


* * *

  
A creaky, broken ladder, half-buried beneath the remains of the floor above: a hope of ascension.

The ladder didn’t quite reach the caved-in ballroom ceiling. There was nothing to rest it on. To reach the ninth floor, Ludger had to attempt to be a human support beam until Leia reached the top and could reach down to try to help hold it in place. It went against every safety training manual Ludger had ever read, and by the time Leia and Nova were both on the floor above him, Ludger’s arms were burning. He could only imagine how difficult it was for Leia and Nova to hold it from above while he climbed up himself.

Getting to the ninth floor was difficult enough, but when they discovered the staircase was still inaccessible from where they climbed to, it was crushing.

The tenth floor was caved in just the same, giving them a hole to climb up as they had before, but Ludger wasn’t sure how long their bodies would hold out, traveling this way. Still, he tried to focus on the positives, as Leia and Nova did; at least they had a way up, for now.

While Leia climbed once more, he could feel his arms shake lightly, and he cursed under his breath.

“You alright, Luds?” Nova asked him, concern in her eyes, and he nodded insistently. He had to be alright; they had to make it up another twenty-odd floors.

When Nova took to the ladder, though, his arms quaked more dangerously. He tried not to think, not to feel. He was a support beam, nothing more. Nova was almost there—

The walls around them shook with his arms, and Nova screamed as the ladder swayed. Ludger couldn’t look up—all his focus was on keeping the ladder still. He heard Leia shout indistinctly, and Nova’s weight left the ladder.

Ludger’s face finally turned upward, his heart stopping, expecting to see the girl falling to the floor. Instead, what met his eye was a large chunk of the ceiling, pummeling down toward him.

With the ladder in hand, he couldn’t jump out of the way quickly enough. He tried to shove the metal structure away from him, but it caught on the cement mid-air, and came down on top of him instead.

He fell flat on his back, and an intense, crushing weight landed on his right leg. The rumbling of the aftershock, and the concerned shouts of his friends above him were drowned out by his own blood-curdling scream.

_“Ludger!”_

The ladder had fallen diagonally over his body, pinning his hip down against the floor. The enormous chunk of cement from the ceiling had found its place partway atop the ladder, with the rest of it crushing his femur.

Ludger’s hands hovered shakily over the crumbling rock. He couldn’t move it. He didn’t want to. His leg would be a mess beneath it. Blood pulsed in his ears, his stomach turned, the pain was unbearable.

“Ludger, we’re coming back down!” Leia’s voice. Leia, always looking out for him.

His eyes turned upward, finding the distant faces of his friends, looking down at him from the hole in the ceiling. So, so far up. They couldn’t make it down safely without the ladder. They would waste more time. There was no way Ludger could continue to climb up—

“Find Elle!” He shouted shakily, mustering up everything he could. “Bring Elle and Jude down first, I’ll—be fine!”

“Ludger, that’s _crazy!”_ Leia argued. “You’re trapped, you need help—”

“You’ll waste time! Just find them first! Elle might need you more!”

_“Ludger!”_ Nova’s voice carried down to him now, the panic in her tone doing nothing to ease Ludger’s pain. “We can’t just—”

“Elle matters so much more,” Ludger cut her off, the tips of his quivering fingers scraping against the rock that pinned him down. “Please!”

A beat of silence, and then a long, frustrated groan from Leia.

“We’ll be back soon! Just stay safe, alright?!”

Ludger watched both their faces disappear, unable to form a response that wouldn’t bubble out in _please, no, don’t leave me._ He kept his mouth firmly shut, tears spilling out the corners of his eyes as the pain, fear, and overwhelming loneliness took over.

  


* * *

  
Elle really seemed to like Milla. Her spirits raised almost immediately with her presence—she was no longer clinging to Jude’s sleeve, anticipating the next aftershock. Now it was almost like she’d found some competition, someone to show off for. Jude almost felt offended, but it was nice to see her so bright and confident again.

“C’mon, Milla!” Elle shouted, from where she marched ahead down the stairs. “Why’re you so slow?”

“Slow?!” Milla countered, her hands on her hips. “I’m being careful! I’m anything but slow!”

The grin on Elle’s face was unmistakable. Jude found himself smiling as well, his worries almost melting away, for the briefest of moments. All of that fell away as they rounded the corner to find the staircase caved in, with numerous bodies scattered atop and underneath the rubble.

Elle froze at once, and Jude rushed ahead to get between her and the sight of the bodies.

“Go back up,” he said a bit too sharply, stomach turning. She had already seen, but there was no point in letting her gaze linger.

“I thought we were trying to go _down,_ not _up,”_ Milla argued, but Elle cut in.

“Listen to Jude, he knows a lot of things!”

Milla huffed, but Jude met her eyes with all the weighted sincerity he could muster. She glanced over his shoulder, then wordlessly grabbed Elle’s arm, turning to guide her safely back up the stairs.

“Yeah, alright,” Milla told her. “I’ll listen this time.”

Before he followed them up the flight they’d just come down, Jude chanced a glance back at the pile, briefly searching for life. The only movement was from a broken light fixture, which sparked threateningly. He turned away again and hurried to catch up to his companions.

“What’s the plan, Jude?” Milla asked him roughly. Jude pushed open the door to the sixteenth floor in response.

“The stairs are blocked,” he explained, “so we’ll need to find another way down.”

“Is there another staircase?” Elle asked brightly, her curious tone contrasting starkly with the sight Jude had just confronted.

“I’m not sure,” Jude told her honestly. “If there isn’t, though, a floor might have caved in where we can climb down.”

“Like spelunking!” Elle cheered. Jude was impressed she knew the word at all, but he nodded, hoping to encourage the adventure within her as much as possible.

“Yeah, something like that.”

The three of them tread down the hall, lined with mostly opened or broken-down doors leading into the rooms. The people who had survived on this floor had all fled downward somehow—

_The last of them were probably crushed on the staircase,_ Jude thought, and abruptly shifted his focus.

Milla peered into a few of the rooms, scanning for holes in the floor. “What if there’s no way down?” she asked, her voice filled with sharp irritation.

Jude took a deep breath. “We’ll deal with that when we come to it.”

“That doesn’t sound very hopeful,” Milla argued.

Elle’s little feet pattered a bit ahead, to peer around the corner of the hall. She gasped, then grinned, looking back at them. “Look!” she shouted.

Jude rushed to meet her. As he rounded the corner, he could spot a hole in the floor at the end of the next hall, spanning almost the full width of the floor between the rooms.

“Well done, Elle,” Jude praised her, and she beamed up at him.

“I’m pretty good at this, huh?”

Milla joined them, her arms crossed skeptically. “Great, but how are we going to get down without breaking an arm?”

“I’ll take a look, and see if I can work out a way to approach it,” Jude answered her calmly. “We can probably use some sheets from some of the rooms to fasten a rope and try to climb down, but we need to make sure whatever we tie it to is stable.”

“Great, more climbing,” Milla said dryly. Jude ignored her.

“You both stay here, I’m going to check the stability of the floor around the hole.”

“You got this, Jude!” Elle shouted encouragingly, fists in the air.

Jude slowly walked down the hallway, measuring the floor beneath him with every step. The closer he got to the hole, the more it seemed to creak beneath his feet. He stopped walking, peering around at the nearest surroundings instead.

The door handles would probably be their best bet for an anchor—but peering down the hole as best he could, it seemed the floor below them wasn’t all that stable, either. It would be risky to cross it to make it back to the staircase.

Somehow, it still seemed a better option than pushing through the cement, sparks, and bodies that blocked their other path down.

“Okay,” Jude called back to Milla and Elle, taking a single step back toward them, “I think I have a plan—”

Before he could continue, the floor began to tremble, wobbling and cracking right under his feet. It would drop him onto the next floor. Without thinking, he launched himself at the nearest door, clinging to the metal handle.

“Get down!” he yelled, hardly able to hear his own voice. Looking back toward his friends, it seemed Milla had followed Jude’s lead, grabbing onto a door handle of her own—just in case. She had an arm securely around Elle. He was grateful.

The gratitude could only last so long before his focus returned to his own situation. The floor under him crumbled away and dropped him, and Jude found himself dangling from the handle, heart pounding in his ears.

Over the rumbling, he heard Elle scream, and hoped Milla could keep her from running into danger. The girl was just as impulsive as her father, overshadowing even the most basic survival impulse.

The floor fell away beneath the door, and the wall around the door frame began to crack and break apart as well, until the solid metal door folded under the pressure.

The jerk sent Jude’s usually-firm grip slipping. His broken wrist came up and scrambled for a better grip, but he missed the mark, and he found himself falling onto the rubble on the floor below.

He landed flat on his back, all the air knocked out of him. The aftershock was dying away, the rumbling ceasing, but the cement from the floor above continued to fall around him while he tried to recover. He found himself unable to move as stars danced in his vision.

Another loud crack told him the floor beneath him now would give way as well, but he was given no time to react before it dumped him down again.

He felt like a rag doll, tossed downward with the rubble. He couldn’t see through the dust, couldn’t reach out to grab onto anything to keep himself from falling further. His body hit something on the way down—another floor? The fall was longer, this time, and he just kept falling down, down, with the carpet and rock, until his shoulder connected with something solid, very solid. His shoulder crunched under his weight, and he only registered the continued crashing around him as his vision went black.

  


* * *

  
The pain didn’t stop. It was searing, throbbing, _wet._ Ludger had to wonder just how much blood he was losing, if he even had a leg left at all. He could only lay flat on his back, staring up at the hole in the ballroom ceiling where Leia and Nova had disappeared. Would he die here? Was he okay with that? _Would Elle and Jude make it out without him?_

The tears kept coming. He couldn’t stop them, he was terrified. No one was coming for him. If he didn’t bleed to death here, surely the ceiling would cave in more and crush him before anyone could return for him.

The floor rumbled, and a block of the ceiling landed inches from his head, scattering broken bits over him and filling his lungs with dust. As he coughed and wretched, choking on drywall, snot, and tears, he just hoped his friends wouldn’t have to encounter his body on their way back down.

He hoped they made it back down at all.

More and more of the ceiling broke away and fell, scattered around the ballroom. Ludger wanted to close his eyes, to accept his fate, but they remained wrenched open, unable to look away as more and more fear gripped his heart. He couldn’t dodge. Couldn’t move—

Something other than rubble fell from the widening hole above him—a body, limp, broken, and dirtied. Ludger was thankful that the sound of it hitting the floor was drowned out by the heavier crashing around it.

His vision blurred as he continued to cough. The aftershock subsided, and Ludger was left wheezing, but somehow still alive.

He peered across the floor, to where the body had landed, maybe ten feet from where Ludger lay himself. He knew he was unlikely to find the person alive, but he was growing more desperate—for what, he wasn’t quite sure. For someone to save him? For someone to die beside him?

As the dust cleared, however, Ludger’s heart turned to ice. His breath caught in his throat. The messy, dark hair that covered the head facing away from him was too familiar. He didn’t need to see his face to know that slight figure, the black t-shirt and cargo pants he so often wore—

_“Jude,”_ Ludger choked, peeling himself from the floor to sit up, legs still trapped.

Jude didn’t move. He had landed on his side, with one arm tucked under him, the other sprawled out limply beside him. His legs stuck out at awkward angles. From his distance, Ludger couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

Stronger than the fear that had wracked him, grief gripped onto Ludger’s heart.

He shoved at the cement that pinned him, roughly and recklessly trying to pull his legs free. He shouted out, cried, screamed in desperate rage, but the rock wouldn’t budge.

“Jude!” he shouted more loudly, his voice breaking, twisting himself and reaching out across the floor toward him, trying to reach him. It was no use. He was too far.

He continued to struggle until his body gave out, head spinning, arms uselessly stretched out in front of him. His eyes were locked on the dark hair at the nape of Jude’s neck—the hair Ludger had always longed to run his fingers through, the hair he'd never dared to reach for, the hair he would never get to touch now.

His remaining hope shattered. The loneliness Ludger had felt before seemed simple by comparison.

  


* * *

  
Elle was a lot of things. She was strong, and smart, and good at word games. She thought she was pretty brave, especially now, when the floor couldn’t be trusted, and Ludger wasn’t around to fix her pigtails or promise her Elle-style mabo curry once they got down all these stairs.

But right now, most of all, Elle was really, honestly, pretty scared.

The floor stopped shaking. Milla’s arm was still around her, holding her back from running to help Jude, even though she wanted to, even though she was probably too scared to anyway.

Jude was _gone._

Elle was really trying to be a strong, brave girl. She really was. But now her eyes filled with tears, and she fought Milla’s arms a little more.

“Jude!” she shouted again.

“Hey!” Milla countered, her grip almost bruising on the girl’s arm. “We have to be careful, or we’ll fall too!”

She was right. Elle _knew_ she was right, and she knew Jude would have told her the same thing, too. But nothing seemed as important as finding Jude where he fell, and making sure he was okay.

“What do we do?!” she asked instead, searching for direction.

“Jude said we could make a rope, right? We need sheets.”

“Sheets,” Elle repeated, irritated at how shaky her own voice sounded. “I’ll get sheets!”

Milla nodded once. “Good girl. Be careful, though, alright?”

“I’m always careful!” Elle insisted, at last pulling out of Milla’s grip. She ran into one of the rooms behind them, where the floor was still sturdier. There was a lot of glass in this room, too, just like in the room they were supposed to stay in. She shook some of the glass off the sheets as she stripped them from the bed, being extra careful not to cut herself.

Her shoes crunched over the shards on the floor as she stepped back from the bed, and her body turned toward the enormous broken window.

It was clear they were much lower than they had started out. The buildings and cars below them were still small, but not nearly as tiny as they had been from the twenty-ninth floor. Being closer to the ground didn’t seem to be any less scary, though. Being closer meant it was easier to see the destroyed roads and smaller buildings, the broken windows, the crushed cars and injured people lining the streets.

Would it really be better to reach the ground? Would the world get any less scary?

As long as she had Ludger and Jude and Milla, it would be less scary, she decided.

Elle tore herself from the window and ran back into the hall with her sheets in tow, dumping them onto the floor in a pile. Milla returned from another room with an armful of her own, and added them to Elle’s pile.

“We’ll tie them together, then secure them to a door handle,” Milla explained to Elle.

Elle sat down beside the sheets and grinned.

“Don’t worry,” she assured Milla, “You’re looking at a blanket fort _expert.”_

  


* * *

  
_The wind hit Jude’s face as the train rolled onto the track in front of him. It was always fascinating to him, how quickly the bullet trains could stop, and how quickly they could gain momentum again. The doors opened to allow passengers to board—but Jude remained rooted in place, merely watching people filter on and off the track._

_What was he doing here? He had some reason. Something important. Was he going to the lab? Heading to meet a potential investor?_

_The train’s doors closed again, and the jingle overhead announced that it was departing._

_“You look lost,” a voice said behind him. “Do you need some help?”_

_Jude turned slowly, until his eyes met beautiful bright green. He blinked up at the man before him, a light blush rising to his cheeks._

_“I can’t seem to remember what I’m doing here,” Jude answered._

_The green eyes crinkled in amusement. There was a light ring of gold around their pupils—mesmerizing. “To catch a train, I’d assume?” the man provided cheekily. Jude felt his face heat up further, and he sputtered a bit, searching for a response._

_“Well, sure, probably. I think wherever I’m going, it’s really important.”_

_“Strange you can’t remember, then, isn’t it?”_

_There was something painfully comforting about the man’s gaze._

_“I’m Ludger,” the man provided._

_That’s right. There was someone Jude wanted to see. Someone more important than anything._

_“Jude Mathis,” Jude provided quietly, scanning every detail of the man’s face. The way the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile, the way his dyed black fringe fell in his eyes—everything was increasingly familiar, and filled Jude with a strong sense of love, an intense longing._

_“Jude,” Ludger repeated, and Jude felt a shiver run down his spine._

_"Yes,” Jude answered quietly. Of course. He’d been looking for Ludger. So why didn’t he feel satisfied?_

_“Jude,” Ludger said again._

_Jude reached out a hand, but Ludger seemed to have taken a step back—he couldn’t touch him._

_“I’m right here,” Jude provided, trying to follow him, but he couldn’t get any closer._

_“Jude. …Jude.”_

“Jude!”

Jude sucked in a long breath, and pain coursed through him instantly. His whole body felt battered and bruised, and his head was throbbing. It took a lot of convincing to get himself to move at all, starting with his fingers.

The splint he had fashioned for his wrist was broken and askew, barely held in place by the torn and dirtied makeshift bandages. He grunted softly, and pain shot through his core again.

Ludger’s face still hovered behind his eyelids, reminding him why he needed to peel himself up and keep moving downward, or upward, or any direction.

“Ludger…” he rasped to himself, trying to gather a little encouragement.

“Jude?”

Jude’s eyes opened, staring across the dark and dusty stretch of floor he lay on. There was very little sunlight—it must be late evening, by now. There were chunks of concrete littered around him, but no other bodies in sight. Very slowly, gingerly, he tried to turn onto his back. Both his arms were nearly useless—his left wrist still contained in a now-useless splint, and the right arm didn’t want to move at all. Likely dislocated.

“Jude!”

There was no mistaking the voice. Jude’s movements gained urgency, turning over until his bleary eyes could find the source—

Ludger’s face was filthy, with dusty tear tracks streaking down his face, but the brightness in his eyes hadn’t dulled. His expression was one of desperate relief, one that was almost jarring, but everything Jude needed in the moment. Jude stumbled and rolled onto his knees, but as he took in the rest of Ludger, the overjoyed feeling of seeing him again disappeared entirely.

His lower half was clearly trapped. Crushed.

Ludger’s desperation wasn’t merely for Jude’s safety; it was for his own.

Jude scrambled toward him on his knees, eyes scanning him, unable to find words. He took Ludger’s face in his shaky hands, unable to stop himself. He wanted to offer comfort, and wanted to take that comfort for himself.

“You’re okay,” Ludger choked, and Jude leaned over him to bring their filthy foreheads together.

“What are you doing here, Ludger?” Jude breathed.

“I needed to find you and Elle.”

Jude should have known, all along, that Ludger wouldn’t have left them for safety. It wasn’t in his nature. He’d give anything for that little girl—and Jude couldn’t even be mad at him for it.

“Elle, she’s—she’s with a woman we met, before I fell,” Jude babbled, overeager to give Ludger another piece of relief. “She’ll probably be fine. Milla will keep her safe.”

Ludger closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in and nodding slightly. Jude felt the movement against his forehead more than he saw it.

“And you?” Ludger asked weakly, “You’re okay? You fell, you didn’t wake up for so long—”

“Don’t worry about me,” Jude insisted, and Ludger’s eyes opened again, a familiar sternness within them. He didn’t need to use words for Jude to know what he was trying to say. Jude’s lips turned up just slightly, in an honest smile. “…Fine. I’m sure I could use some looking at by a doctor—but for right now, I’m alright. I promise.”

Ludger seemed more satisfied by this answer, if only by a small amount.

Jude finally released his face and forced himself to his feet, examining the slab of cement that was keeping Ludger pinned to the floor.

“Can you feel your legs?” he asked, moving out of his emotional hell and into a more clinical mode of thought. He needed facts, a plan.

“Unfortunately,” Ludger grunted. Jude couldn't imagine how much it hurt, but it was a good thing. It meant Ludger hadn’t been paralyzed.

“Describe what you’re feeling,” Jude requested, stooping down to examine the ladder now.

“It’s all my right leg,” Ludger answered through clenched teeth. Jude felt bad, forcing him to focus on the pain he was sure he was trying to forget about. “It’s—probably in bad shape.”

Ludger’s hips and left leg were pinned down by the ladder, but otherwise seemed intact. The cement had fallen—and remained—partly on the ladder, but completely covering Ludger’s right leg. Only his shoe stuck out, at a grossly awkward angle. It wasn’t a good situation, but at the very least, Ludger still had one leg intact. They could still hope to get him to the ground.

“If I use the ladder as a lever to help roll the rock off…” Jude wondered aloud, but with his arms in such a sorry state, there was little hope of getting it to budge.

_“Yikes.”_

Jude jumped at the sudden voice, much deeper than Ludger’s. His head swiveled to the ballroom’s entrance, where a tall, dark-haired man stood leaning against the cracked door frame.

“Oh— it’s you,” Jude said stupidly.

“We meet again,” the man answered him, peeling himself off of the frame to mosey toward them instead. “Still helping strangers before yourself, eh, do-gooder? What happened to the girl you were with?”

Jude opened and closed his mouth a few times. “I fell—we got separated. And this isn’t a stranger, he’s… very important to me.”

The man glanced down at Ludger and gave him a rather oddly-timed salute.

“Can’t say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but I’m Alvin.”

“Ludger,” he offered pathetically.

Alvin crossed his arms and returned his gaze to Jude. “I can’t promise he’ll make it to the ground in this state, but I can at least help you move this thing off him.”

Jude blinked at him. “R-really? Didn’t you warn me not to stop to help strangers—?”

Alvin shrugged noncommittally. “Well, sure. But you aren’t a stranger anymore. I owe you one—for my uncle.”

Jude could clearly hear Elle’s voice echo in his head— _You never know when you’ll need to cash in a favor!_ He smiled a little, some hope fluttering back into his heart.

“I really appreciate it. But my shoulder’s dislocated from when I fell—” he gestured to his right arm, hanging awkwardly at his side. “I won’t be able to aid much in moving it.”

Alvin clicked his tongue and shook his head. “You’re just a mess, aren’t ya? Fine, come here, I’ll pop the sucker back into place.”

Jude took a step toward him, ever too trusting. “You know how to do it?”

“Yeah. Done this a few too many times, actually.”

Curiosity rose within him, but Jude acknowledged that now probably wasn’t the time to pry into a stranger’s history with dislocation.

“I’m Jude,” he said instead, as he moved to lay flat on the floor.

“Charmed,” Alvin answered dryly, crouching down beside him and taking Jude’s arm in hand. Jude took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying not to think as the man slowly pulled his arm away from his body.

Jude clenched his teeth as the pain briefly intensified, then ebbed with the soft pop as it moved back into the socket.

He opened his eyes and smiled up at Alvin. “Thanks,” he said earnestly.

“You’re a weird kid,” Alvin answered him, standing up again. Jude sat up, and his eyes fell on Ludger, his face glistening with sweat and tears, watching them with a cocktail of pain and relief.

This next operation would be anything but fun.

“C’mon, Jude, no time to lose,” Alvin told him, and Jude blinked back to awareness.

“Right,” he said. He gestured to the ladder. “If I lift here, the ladder will act as a lever to help lift the cement, but it might crush his lower leg more if the angle isn’t right. Can I trust you to guide it off of him when I lift?”

“Aye-aye,” Alvin answered him, with another overly-casual salute. He walked around to the other side of the cement chunk, squatting slightly and experimentally placing his hands on it.

Jude looked down at Ludger, who was already bracing himself, visibly shaking. It made Jude’s stomach turn and his heart clench. He swallowed thickly and placed a gentle hand on Ludger’s left leg through the bars of the ladder. Ludger flinched at the touch, and Jude kicked himself.

“We’ll get you free, Ludger,” he promised. “Just bear with us, here.”

With his eyes wide with fearful anticipation, Ludger turned and locked his gaze on Jude in a clear attempt to shift his focus.

“I trust you,” he rasped.

Jude nodded once, showing his determination, then tore his gaze away to meet Alvin’s eyes instead.

“On three,” he announced, and Alvin nodded back at him. “One, two… three!”

Jude lifted the ladder slowly, but with enough force to gain some momentum, tilting the rock. Alvin did his part in lifting from the other side, easing it off of Ludger’s leg and down the length of the ladder instead, until the slab’s center of gravity was pivoting on the floor.

“Push now!” Alvin ordered, and Jude lifted the ladder with more force, tilting the rock onto its side and sending it crashing onto the floor beside Ludger.

Ludger’s fingernails scraped at the dusty floor as he writhed in his new freedom, a gut-wrenching groan escaping his throat. His eyes were shut tight, and his chest was heaving. Jude passed the ladder to Alvin so it wouldn’t fall back over Ludger, then dropped to his knees beside him.

He instantly grabbed his hand, and Ludger squeezed it tight enough to bruise. Looking down the length of his body, Jude could tell by the awkward angles of his joints that the remains hidden within Ludger’s pant leg would barely be considered a limb anymore.

The needed bandages. Sheets. Something long to act as a splint—

“Alvin,” Jude said quickly, without looking up at him, “I have a list of supplies I need, can I have you gather them for me from the nearby rooms?”

“Sorry, kid, I’ve done my part,” Alvin answered, and Jude felt his stomach drop. He raised his head to look at the man in shock. “I told you before, you gotta look after yourself first. He’s in no condition to climb down ten more flights. I repaid a favor, that’s all.” He shrugged, and Jude’s jaw dropped.

“Alvin—”

“I hope you make it out, really. And with that girl you were with before, too. But this ain’t my area. I can’t waste any more time here.”

He brushed his hands off on his pants, then made his way across the ballroom, to a hole in the floor.

“The stairs are blocked,” he said, crouching down beside the hole. “So don’t bother trying to make it down that way. This is probably your best bet.” He gave one last salute to both of them. “Good luck, kid.”

Jude watched in helpless, desperate anger as Alvin lowered himself into the hole and disappeared.

Ludger’s grip on Jude’s hand tightened more. When Jude’s eyes found his face, his expression was twisted in deep-seated fear. _Don’t leave me,_ he screamed silently. But instead of giving voice to his pain, the only words that left him were: “We have to find Elle.”

Jude nodded, clasping Ludger’s hands in both of his own, his broken wrist aching with the pressure. “I have to get some supplies for your leg,” he said. “But I’ll be right back. We’ll get Elle, and get us all out of here. Okay?”

Ludger took a moment to release his grip on Jude’s hand, like he was mentally prying his fingers off one by one. Finally, though, he nodded.

“Please come back,” he whispered.

  


* * *

  
Elle trusted the rope, and Elle trusted Milla, who was holding the rope on top of it being tied to the door handle. What Elle _didn’t_ trust was the floor she was climbing down to.

There was a large hole below her. It didn’t look secure at all, and Jude was nowhere in sight, so that was even scarier.

Milla smiled at her encouragingly. “You’re strong, right, Elle?”

Elle nodded determinedly. “Really strong!” she insisted.

“You climb down until your feet are level with the floor, then I’ll help swing you to where the floor is sturdy, got it?”

Another nod, with all the confidence she could muster. “Got it!”

She gripped the rope in both hands, tugging on it to test it, even though she trusted the rope. She’d tied it herself, after all, and she was really good at tying knots. She kept looking at Milla, because Milla would know if something was wrong, right? She’d know, because she’s an adult, and she’s super cool. She would make sure Elle didn’t get hurt.

Elle stepped off the edge of the crumbling floor, hanging only by the twisted sheets. She swayed on them slightly, and she held her breath, frozen for a moment.

“Keep going, Elle!” Milla told her. “Just a little at a time.”

Elle gripped the sheet-rope between her shoes to give herself a more secure hold, then began sliding down the length of it. She’d done this before, with the sliding pole at the playground. Now she was super brave and knew how to slide down it properly, but when she was younger, she had held on too tight, and eased herself down just like this.

When she thought of it like that, it wasn’t that scary at all.

She kept moving down, until she was closer to the broken floor below. Not bad! That was pretty easy! She looked down to see how close her feet were to the floor’s level—

She looked down too far. If she fell, it wouldn’t just be through the hole onto the next floor. There were lots of floors broken—Elle couldn’t even see the bottom. Jude had fallen down a _really big_ hole.

Little tears sprang to her eyes, and her grip tightened as she froze on the rope.

“Elle?” Milla called down to her. “You’re almost there! If I swing you, can you reach the floor?”

Elle wasn’t sure. She didn’t know anything, really. Could the floor really be trusted? Would it break away under her feet, like it had broken under Jude’s?

“Elle!” Milla called down again. “I need you to answer me!”

She had to be brave. That was the only way to get to Jude and Ludger, right?

“…I can reach it!” Elle finally provided.

“I’ll swing you! When you can reach the floor, let go of the rope!”

_Just like jumping off the swings at the playground,_ Elle thought. _Easy._

The rope began to swing, slowly gaining momentum. Elle watched the floor, judging the distance and the timing of the upswing. She was an expert at this, she’d done it a thousand times!

When the rope took her far enough, she let go, easily landing on her feet. Proud and relieved, she threw her hands up in the air. “I did it!” she cheered.

“I’m impressed!” Milla called down to her, and Elle placed her hands on her hips, beaming.

“Now it’s your turn, Milla!” Elle shouted back. “Bet you can’t make it look as cool as I did!”

  


* * *

  
Ludger couldn’t watch as Jude carefully wrapped his demolished leg in strips of white sheet. He had fashioned a gag out of a ball of the dirty cloth for him to bite down on, but the pain of the movement left him groaning and writhing, fighting himself not to jerk away.

Jude had returned from his quest for materials with several sheets, hangers, and a shower curtain rod. He had separated the rod into two halves, and was now fastening them to either side of Ludger’s leg to create a splint.

After an excruciatingly long time of jostling his leg from side to side in order to wrap it properly, Jude scooted up on his knees to sit near Ludger’s head. Ludger felt him near, and pried his eyes open, jaw still clenched around the balled up sheet.

“I think I have it fixed up as best I can right now,” Jude told him. Ludger raised an arm to wipe the sweat from his brow, and shakily removed the sheet from his mouth.

“You really did me in,” he complained.

Jude smiled weakly. “Sorry. I tried to be careful—”

“I know,” Ludger assured him, cutting him off. “Thank you, Jude.”

Jude’s eyes were warm, that familiar amber dripping down over him and filling him to the brim. He nodded his acknowledgment, then worked at re-wrapping his own wrist, with a piece of a broken clothes hanger.

“You broke your wrist?” Ludger asked, hoping to distract himself from his leg while he had the time to recuperate.

Jude hummed softly. “During the initial shock,” he explained, “The dresser in the room slid toward us, I threw out my hand to stop it without thinking.”

Silent gratitude choked Ludger again. Better a broken wrist than a concussion—for either Jude or Elle.

Jude used his teeth to rip the strip of sheet he was working with, then tied the end firmly in place. He lightly clenched his fist a few times, then nodded in satisfaction.

“No new injuries from the fall?” Ludger asked, finding his voice again. Jude smiled weakly at him.

“I’ll be black and blue tomorrow. I have a few places I suspect I have some fractures—but nothing to bandage up now. I can get by.”

Ludger didn’t feel good about it, but he nodded, watching Jude get to his feet again.

“We’re going up, aren’t we?” Jude continued, offering his good hand to Ludger. This was it; he would have to try standing. He braced himself for hell.

“Until we find Elle,” Ludger confirmed, taking his hand firmly, and rooting his uninjured foot on the floor to support him as he attempted to lift himself with Jude’s help. He winced, but choked back his groan of pain.

Once he was balanced, Jude wrapped his arm securely around Ludger’s waist.

“I knew you’d say that.” Jude’s eyes were as bright and determined as always. “I’ll be your crutch. Try to avoid using your right leg as much as you can—though I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that.”

Ludger put his own arm around Jude’s shoulders, leaning on him heavily. “…Right.”

“It’ll be slow moving, but we’re in this together.”

Hope surged through him, briefly overshadowing the pain. “Together,” he repeated. His voice was soft, but the confidence behind it was clear.

  


* * *

  
Elle thought she probably wouldn’t mind a little more spelunking, but it was probably better that the stairs weren’t blocked anymore. She and Milla were able to keep moving down, and there weren’t very many people in the way now. It was sort of nice that no one was pushing, but it was a little spooky, too. What if they were the last ones in the building?

“We should play a game,” Elle suggested, as they took each step one at a time. They were _proceeding with caution,_ or whatever Jude had said earlier, but she wished they could move faster.

“What kind of game?” Milla asked.

“Rhyme time!” Elle decided instantly.

“Rhyme—? Okay, uh… sheet.”

“Sheet? _Really?”_

“What?! They were still on my mind!”

“Okay, _beat.”_

“Heat.”

Elle grinned. “Meat!”

“Treat,” Milla countered, with an air of superiority. Elle wouldn’t let that stand.

_“Feet!”_

Milla seemed briefly thrown by Elle’s strong delivery of the word, and Elle puffed out her chest in pride.

“Um… uh… _bleat.”_

“What?! That’s not a word!”

“It is too!” Milla shouted, hands on her hips. “It’s the sound sheep make! They bleat!"

“That sounds fake,” Elle insisted. She’d never heard the word _bleat,_ and she’d been around for _eight whole years._

“Well it’s _not,”_ Milla huffed. “I grew up around sheep, I would know!”

“I still don’t believe you,” Elle argued stubbornly.

They rounded a corner, and a sharp gasp rang out from below them, making Elle jump. It had been so quiet before, Elle had forgotten there still could be other people around—

And she _knew_ these people!

“Leia! Nova!” Elle shouted, throwing Jude’s warning of caution to the wind and running down the last flight of steps toward them. “What are you doing here?!”

“We came to find you, silly!” Nova answered brightly, and Elle threw herself onto both of them, surprising herself with how quickly her eyes filled with tears. She wasn’t a baby, she didn’t need to cry!

But it was _so good_ to see them.

“I missed you!” Elle told them, wiping her eyes on Leia’s sleeve. “I thought you’d go outside where it’s safe, with Ludger!”

“Ludger would never leave you behind, Elle,” Leia told her, patting her hair. Elle wasn’t a kid, but she gave it a pass this time. It was nice to be looked after, right now.

“These are your friends?” Milla asked behind her, and Elle turned to smile up at her, tears and all.

“Yeah! Leia and Nova are friends with Jude and my daddy,” she explained. “They work here, so they got us a really cool room for my birthday!”

The reality of the situation crashed down around her again. There was no more really cool room, no more exciting birthday. There were only scary rumbling floors, pain in her feet, and no Jude or Ludger, _still._

“Where is Jude?” Leia asked, and Elle ducked her head.

“He fell,” Milla answered for her. “At least a few floors. We haven’t found him yet.”

“What about Ludger?” Elle blurted, looking up at her friends for answers.

Leia and Nova looked at each other, and their expressions told Elle that their answer wasn’t going to be what she wanted to hear.

  


* * *

  
Getting Ludger up a ladder simply wasn’t going to happen. After hearing how Leia and Nova had made it up with only Ludger acting as a support beam, Jude was surprised anyone made it up at all.

So they returned to the stairs. Ludger had been right; there was rubble blocking their way, but Jude figured Alvin had to have come from _somewhere._ He hadn’t dropped from above them, he’d come from the hallway.

It seemed he had dug out enough of a hole at the top of the pile to squeeze himself through, but getting Ludger with his splinted, immobile leg over it would be another story.

Ludger sat on one of the lower steps, with his leg stretched out in front of him, while Jude wrestled with the array of concrete, drywall, and splintered wood in their path. If he could dig out a little more, he could help pull Ludger over.

He could feel Ludger’s eyes on him, helpless and guilty. In between pained grunts of effort, moving pieces of floor, wall, or _whatever_ aside, Jude tried to flash him a reassuring smile. But the further he dug, and the more energy was drained from him, the more he was aware of how that smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“Jude,” Ludger cut through his thoughts after a good while of digging. Jude’s calloused fingers were cracked and bloody, with dirt and dust packed under his short fingernails. He wiped some sweat from his brow and pushed his flat, filthy hair out of his eyes, looking down at his friend.

“What’s up?” he asked breathlessly.

Ludger opened and closed his mouth, then shook his head.

“…Nothing. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Jude assured him, turning his focus back to the pile. He shoved a slab of concrete away from himself, and to his surprise, it slid easily down the other side, widening the hole that Alvin had started. He grinned.

“We’re making progress,” he announced.

_“You’re_ making progress,” Ludger corrected him. “I can only sit and watch.”

Jude shook his head again, given strength by the movement he had created. “You’re a great morale boost,” he told him, and though he didn’t look away from the pile of debris while he continued working, he thought he heard a small, fond chuckle from Ludger.

With a little more work, he created a wider, deeper ledge with enough room to maneuver around. It still wouldn’t be easy—but it was doable.

He turned to Ludger at last, stupid, determined grin still plastered to his face. “Ready to keep moving?”

Ludger met his gaze with a smile, and shifted to lift himself, sliding his back up the wall as he tried to keep from jostling his leg. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Jude helped him up the few steps to the edge of the pile, then left him to lean against it, dropping his hands.

“I’ll crawl over first, then I’ll help pull you through, alright?”

Ludger nodded once. “Alright.”

Jude rooted one foot on some of the concrete that stuck out lower in the pile, then pulled himself up to the ledge of the hole he’d created, until he could swing his legs over the side and step down. Finding a decent footing, he leaned over the edge and extended both hands, broken wrist be damned, to Ludger.

Ludger hesitated a moment, eying Jude’s splint, but Jude shook his head sharply. “Don’t worry about it,” he insisted, “This is more important. I can lift you.”

Ludger gave in silently and took Jude’s hands, placing as little pressure as possible on his bad leg just in order to get his other foot on the concrete Jude had used previously to step up. He gripped Jude’s hands tighter, then used his good leg to struggle for footing as Jude slowly and shakily lifted him.

Once Ludger could get his elbows on the ledge, Jude took a step back, giving him room to hoist his uninjured leg up. He paused and took a moment to breathe, his face contorted in pain.

“Almost there,” Jude assured him, and Ludger seemed to use his words as leverage to keep moving. As he slid his broken leg over the edge, dangling it uselessly down the other side of the pile, Jude’s hands found his waist, and he helped lift him down. It wasn’t a smooth process, but it _worked._ They were effectively on the other side, even if they were both struggling for breath, quietly nursing their respective wounds.

Ludger slid down to the floor, unable to continue to support himself. Jude helped to ease him down, and crouched in front of him. The ground was solid here; they could take a moment to rest.

“You alright?” he asked gently, and Ludger nodded, ever silent—though it seemed his words were now choking him.

Jude was used to seeing Ludger as a pillar of strength. Even now, as he struggled to stand, that strength didn’t fade. He was resolute and determined. It was admirable. It was one of the qualities that Jude had fallen in love with first.

Jude reached out and used his thumb to brush some loose dirt off his cheek. Ludger’s eyes rose to meet his—vibrant blue-green, with that little ring of gold, so visible, even in the dim lighting.

It was the first moment Jude had taken to properly _rest_ since the main shock. He had pushed down his feelings so he could be strong for Elle, or because it was more important to free Ludger, but now it properly dawned on him just how scared he was.

He’d been terrified of losing Ludger. Hell, he still was. But Ludger was right here, now; a filthy, injured mess, but so warm, so secure.

Ludger grabbed Jude’s forearms, pulling him a bit closer, and Jude caved. He leaned forward until their mouths met urgently, tasting all the dirt and blood shared between their chapped lips.

The kiss was soft, loving, but _pressing,_ transferring all the feelings of longing and fear of loss that they had both inevitably felt. Jude broke his good hand out of Ludger’s grip to rest it on his chest instead, leaning in more and tilting his head to press their lips together more firmly. They moved sloppily in their exhaustion, until Jude finally had to break away to breathe. He lingered with his face close, though, and their noses brushed as Ludger gazed into his eyes once again.

Jude opened his mouth, but for once, Ludger’s words spilled out eagerly and cut him off.

“I love you so much,” he blurted out, almost tripping on the words in his haste to get them out. “Whatever happens, I need you to know that.”

Jude’s fingers balled in the front of Ludger’s shirt, and he kissed him again, more roughly, crashing his lips into Ludger’s. He couldn’t seem to control the response—his body moved on its own, reacting to Jude’s stupid pounding heart. Ludger made a soft noise of surprise, and Jude pulled away again almost as quickly.

“I feel the same,” Jude answered breathlessly, a thrilled little smile sitting on his face. “So we need to get out of here together, right? There’s no other option.”

Ludger nodded once, that familiar look of dedication mingling with his pink cheeks and wide, adoring eyes. “Right,” he breathed.

Jude’s fingers smoothed down the fabric of his shirt where his fist had been clenched, then carefully pushed Ludger’s filthy bangs out of his eyes, indulging in all the touch he’d held back on before. “Thank you for telling me,” he said quietly, feeling his own face heat up spectacularly. “I feel like I can do anything, after hearing that.”

“Me too,” Ludger agreed, bringing his own fingers around to the back of Jude’s neck, to run through the hair there. He pulled their foreheads together, and grinned. “…Let’s finish this and get out of here already.”

  


* * *

  
It had arguably been a pretty rough day for Ludger, and it certainly wasn’t over yet—but with Jude’s arm around his waist, his breath on his cheek, he thought maybe they could all get out of this, after all. Just a few more floors—

The building shook again, and Ludger cursed. How many more of these could they take, before the building really did come down?

Somewhere above them, Ludger heard a high-pitched scream. A _familiar_ scream. His heart stopped, and he lurched himself forward, momentarily forgetting all about his leg.

“Elle!” he shouted over the rumble of the earth. Jude had tried to catch him as he fell forward, and crouched with his arms around his torso. _“Elle!”_

From around the corner, the girl appeared, and launched herself toward them. Ludger had never felt such a powerful blow to his heart. She was intact—filthy, almost unrecognizable with her matted, drooping pigtails—but seemingly unharmed. _Undoubtedly alive._

Ludger wrapped both arms around her and held her tight against his chest, tears automatically springing to his eyes. As the noise of the aftershock died down again, Ludger could make out her words.

“Oh, Daddy—!”

Ludger cradled her head and kissed her hair. “You’re okay,” he breathed, “We’re okay.”

More footsteps descended the stairs, and Leia and Nova came into view, with a blond woman Ludger didn’t recognize.

“Ludger!” Nova shouted in loud, overwhelmed relief, rushing to crouch down beside him. Ludger hardly looked up from Elle, offering her a weak smile.

“You found her,” he said. “Thank you.”

Leia collapsed down onto all of them, her arms wrapping tightly around their necks. “I was so worried about you guys!” she sobbed, burrowing her face in Jude’s shoulder. “You have no idea how it felt to leave you behind!”

Elle wedged herself backward a bit. “Leia, you’re crushing me!” she complained, and Leia laughed, releasing them all to sit back on the step.

“Sorry!”

“It’s good to see you, too, Leia,” Jude said, taking a moment to reorient himself. He looked up at Milla, who stood holding one arm, watching the reunion awkwardly. “And Milla— you stuck with Elle,” he acknowledged, offering her a warm, genuine smile. “Thank you.”

“Well, I couldn’t just leave her,” Milla countered with a bit of a huff.

With one of Ludger’s arms still around her, Elle reached back for Milla’s hand, squeezing it tight. “What do you mean?! We’re friends, right?!”

Milla blinked at her, but then wrapped her fingers around Elle’s smaller ones, a blush spreading over her cheeks. “…Sure. Friends.”

“What floor are we on now?” Nova interjected. “We’re almost to the bottom, right?”

“The first eight floors were clear on our way up, as long as nothing new fell in the aftershocks,” Leia added.

Everyone was still here, somehow. Ludger’s heart felt like it might burst.

“Whatever might be in the way, we’ll make it through,” he said. For the first time, he said it with absolute certainty.

  


* * *

  
The sirens and sounds of chaos outside the building were hardly comforting, but the feeling of solid ground under them was nice, to say the least. Ludger couldn’t say he walked out on his own two feet, but he did make it out with all the people he loved supporting him. Not a single pillar had been lost. He was overwhelmingly lucky.

They’d all struggled a bit with the logistics of safely dropping down through the hole on the ninth floor, but with so many helping hands, Ludger thought it couldn't have gone more smoothly. He couldn’t believe he’d initially meant to make his way up alone. Things were so much easier with everyone there.

The walk to the relief camp was several slow, agonizing blocks, but they’d made it.

“Milla!”

The moment they all reached the camp, a woman with long, flowing blue hair seemed to descend upon them. Milla’s eyes lit up with recognition at once.

“Muzét!”

Ludger leaned on Jude a bit more as they paused, watching the sisters catch up.

“I was worried about you!” the woman—Muzét—simpered, throwing her arms around Milla. It was bizarre; Muzét’s hair didn’t seem to have a strand out of place. Maybe Milla had been right not to worry too much.

Jude smiled politely, and touched Milla’s arm. “We’re going on ahead to find a chair for Ludger. You catch up, alright?”

Ludger was grateful. Jude always seemed to know exactly what he needed—though he supposed, in this case, it wasn’t hard to guess.

They continued their slow, steady ambling toward a single-story gymnasium. As they approached the door, Leia gasped.

“Oh, yikes, that’s our boss!” she announced, gesturing to a stern, rather disheveled-looking man who stood by the entrance.

“Don’t you need to check in with him?” Jude wondered aloud, “Weren’t there emergency procedures you two were supposed to follow?”

Leia and Nova looked at each other guiltily.

“Yeah, we’d better let him know we’re okay,” Nova agreed. “We’ll meet you in there, ‘kay?”

The man caught sight of the two girls, and his glare intensified. Ludger wondered how anyone could still be so harsh on their employees after something like this.

The inside of the gym was filled to the brim with cots and folding chairs, and most of all, _people._ By the looks of it, they were unlikely to find any seats that were open—let alone together, and separating was something Ludger was unwilling to compromise on now.

Jude stood on his toes and scanned the room, searching for any open seats. Across the gym, he spotted just one.

“That’s enough for now,” Jude insisted. “As long as you can sit, we’ll stay with you.”

Ludger was too exhausted to argue.

They made their slow trek to the open folding chair, and Ludger took it at once, hardly aware of his surroundings anymore. The adrenaline had worn off. He’d never been in so much pain. He wanted to _sleep._

The man in the seat beside him stood up, and his chuckle sounded a little too familiar.

“Need a seat, kid?”

“Alvin!” Jude gasped, and the man cracked a tired smirk.

“Hey. Glad to see you all made it.”

“You too,” Jude answered, but Alvin was already turning his back.

“This place is for people who aren’t used to being displaced, anyway. I better head out.”

“You can wait with us, if you want,” Jude insisted, but Alvin shook his head.

“Friends aren’t really my style. Nice of you to offer, though.” Without looking back, he offered a wave, and kept walking.

“I feel bad for him,” Elle piped up. She’d been unusually quiet since they’d made it to the ground—though Ludger couldn’t say he was surprised. They were all exhausted, out of energy to speak up more than they had to.

“I feel like we’ll see him again,” Jude said, shaking his head as he took the seat Alvin had left for them. “Ludger, you should keep your leg elevated. You can rest it on my lap.”

Ludger grunted his understanding, and struggled to lift his leg up as instructed. Elle hovered at Ludger’s side, until he opened an arm for her. She leaned into it much more readily than she usually would.

He lifted her up into his lap, resting her weight on his good leg. She curled up against his chest and closed her eyes.

“I wasn’t _really_ that worried about you, you know,” she murmured sleepily. “I knew you’d be okay.”

Ludger smiled and quietly fixed her messy pigtails in response.

Jude rested a hand on his knee, and Ludger sighed, looking over to meet his eyes. He reached out and took Jude’s hand, squeezing it gently.

_We made it,_ Jude’s warm honey-gold eyes told him, despite the dark circles that now hung beneath them.

“Together,” Ludger finished the unsaid thought for him.

Finally, they could rest.

**Author's Note:**

> The last scene is actually from a dream I had earlier this year. Not nearly as specific, of course, but it was just of Jude, Ludger, and Elle resting in a relief camp like this following some sort of disaster. I'm glad I finally got to work it into something ;)


End file.
